The Family Channel (Johnsonverse)
The Family Channel, known as the CBN Satellite Service from 1977 to 1981, the CBN Cable Network from 1981 to 1988, and the CBN Family Channel from 1988 to 1990, is an American television network. History CBN Satellite Service/Cable Network The network was founded by Pat Robertson as the CBN Satellite Service, an arm of his television ministry, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). When the channel launched on April 29, 1977, it became the first basic cable channel to be transmitted via satellite from its launch and, effectively, the first national basic cable-originated network (TBS – which began transmitting via satellite in December 1976 – originated as a feed of broadcast television station WTCG (later WTBS and now WPCH-TV) in Atlanta, Georgia; the national version of the channel did not exist until 1981, when the Turner Broadcasting System launched a separate feed of WTBS for distribution to cable systems outside the Atlanta market containing national advertisements). Initially, the network offered only religious programs aimed at a Christian audience. The offerings on the CBN Satellite Service during its early years included CBN's flagship news/talk show, The 700 Club (which aired three times per day every Monday through Friday in the late-morning and at night), along with programs from many notable and lesser-known television evangelists. As a result, a few televangelists began to produce stripped programs to air on the network each weekday. The CBN Satellite Service grew its subscriber base to 10.9 million households by May 1981. On August 1, 1981, the channel was relaunched as the CBN Cable Network. At that time of the name change, it was concurrently repositioned as an advertiser-supported "family-friendly" entertainment network, although the channel continued to offer religious programs that occupied about a third of its daily schedule. Entertainment programming that aired on the channel during this period included various classic television series (consisting of classic sitcoms from the 1950s and westerns from the 1950s and 1960s such as My Little Margie, Wagon Train, The Virginian and Bachelor Father), reruns of game shows, older movies, and some family-oriented drama series. CBN Cable also produced its first original series with the relaunch including a weekday morning talk show, US a.m. and the faith-based soap opera Another Life. The network also aired – and was even involved in the production of a few of them – a handful of Christian or family-friendly animated series, including some anime – such as CBN's own co-productions with Japanese amimation studio Tatsunoko Production, Superbook and The Flying House; the channel also carried English-dubbed versions of Honey, Honey and Leo the Lion. Religious programming retained a sizeable portion of CBN Cable's schedule; in addition to continuing to run weekdaily airings of The 700 Club, non-CBN produced ministry programs were relegated to Saturday and Sunday evenings, and Sunday mornings, encompassing only 22% of the network's programming lineup by 1990. The channel's decision to mix secular and religious programs within its schedule mirrored the programming format used by the independent television stations that CBN had owned (then based in six markets) at the time of the rebrand. Additional programming that joined the CBN Cable lineup later in the decade included Hazel, Father Knows Best, The Big Valley, and Gunsmoke plus foreign acquisitions The Campbells and Butterfly Island. Under the new format, the national distribution of the CBN Cable Network had grown from 28 million households in May 1985, to 35.8 million in May 1987. The Family Channel On August 1, 1988, the word "Family" was incorporated into the channel's name to better reflect its programming format, rebranding as The CBN Family Channel; shortly after the new name was adopted, however, references to CBN within its name began to be excised in on-air continuity announcements and print promotions for its programs (with the exception of the initialized reference to its parent ministry featured within its logo), referring to it as simply "The Family Channel". The logo that the channel has used ever since consists of a blue ring with the article "The" (accompanied by the "CBN" initials as well until 1990) placed on top and "Channel" at the bottom with a blended yellow and red "Family" script font overlaid on the ring and an orange/yellow striped sphere. The channel's promotional advertisements were also revamped as well, featuring a series of promos known as "Family Moments," depicting situations in which families spent time with each other (such as a family playing checkers, a grandfather bonding with his grandson, and a woman hugging her husband on their wedding day). By 1990, the network had grown too profitable to remain under the CBN banner without endangering the Christian Broadcasting Network's non-profit status (federal regulations enforced by the Internal Revenue Service prohibit non-profit organizations from owning for-profit entities that account for a substantial portion of its activities). On January 8 of that year, CBN spun off The CBN Family Channel to International Family Entertainment Inc. (a newly formed company founded by Pat Robertson's eldest son and CBN Family network president, Timothy Robertson, and operated as a joint venture between the Robertson family and John C. Malone, owner of Denver-based cable television provider Tele-Communications Inc. and multimedia firm Liberty Media) for $250 million in convertible securities. The Robertsons paid $150,000 to acquire 4.5 million shares and a controlling ownership interest in IFE, with Pat and Tim subsequently purchasing an additional 1.5 million shares. Consequently, The Family Channel became the official name for the channel on September 15, 1990, dropping all remaining references to the "CBN" moniker. As a stipulation of the sale to International Family Entertainment, the channel was required to continue to carry The 700 Club (a stipulation that Pat Robertson also imposed when the channel was sold to Johnson Industries in 1993). This time-buy clause (which also mandates that the program air at suitable time slots that would allow it to attract decent viewership) was the only requirement that Robertson included in sales terms for the network to its subsequent owners. However, public assumption had conflated for many years that this sole existing stipulation was one of two that he included following the sale of the network by CBN; another contractual clause that Robertson was alleged to have added in the sale agreement to Fox required any future secular owners to maintain the word "Family" in the network's name in perpetuity. In a Q&A session in 2015, Johnson CEO Tim Johnson noted that there was no record of such a clause ever having been in place. By 1989, the channel was seen in 47.3 million households, with its distribution jumping to 54 million homes (or 92% of all U.S. households with a cable television subscription) by 1992. At that point, the 1950s sitcoms and westerns that had long been featured on its lineup were scaled back, in favor of more recent drama series as well as cartoons and later, game shows (with a mix of both original programs like Trivial Pursuit and Shop 'til You Drop, and reruns of older game shows such as the Jim Lange version of Name That Tune and Let's Make a Deal). In fact, the channel's weekday afternoon game show block consisted of the aforementioned programs along with the later episodes of Split Second and other shows specifically produced for the channel (such as Shopping Spree, Small Talk, Wait 'til You Have Kids and a revival of It Takes Two, hosted by Dick Clark). The Family Channel also began airing more recent scripted series – among them Big Brother Jake, The Adventures of the Black Stallion, Bordertown, Rin Tin Tin: K-9 Cop, Maniac Mansion and The New Zorro– many of which aired as part of "The Positive Place", a weekly block on Sunday early-evenings that ran from 1991 to 1994. On September 11, 1989, The CBN Family Channel launched "Fun Town," a daily children's program block featuring content from DIC Enterprises. Under its programming deal with the company, DIC also planned to produce four specials per quarter that would air on the channel, including holiday specials and a film version of the animated series The New Archies; however, DIC never produced any specials for the channel.12 In 1992, the "Fun Town" block was rebranded as "Fam TV". In March 1992, the Christian Broadcasting Network sold its interest in International Family Entertainment, when the company announced plans to become publicly traded, selling 6.66 million shares valued at $100 million, at a price between $14 and $16 per share (however, Pat Robertson retained ownership of 3.6 million shares in IFE until the company's sale to News Corporation); IFE would also sell 3.33 million shares of stock to the public. In January 1993, IFE purchased TVS Entertainment, a British broadcaster which owned MTM Enterprises, for $68.5 million. That year, International Family Entertainment and Flextech jointly launched an international version of The Family Channel in the United Kingdom; on February 3, 1997, that channel eventually relaunched as the game show-dedicated network Challenge (an outgrowth of "Family Challenge Weekend", a weekend game show block that debuted on The Family Channel U.K. in October 1996), following IFE's sale of its 61% controlling interest to Flextech in April 1996. In addition, in the United States, The Family Channel attempted to launch a spin-off network with a very similar format to that which the U.K. Family Channel evolved into; The Game Channel was intended as an interactive game show-oriented channel that was also set to launch in 1993.1819 International Family Entertainment launched another cable channel, the Cable Health Club, on October 4, 1993, which was made available to cable providers without a carriage fee; the lineage of that network – which was later renamed FitTV – is traceable to the current-day Discovery Communications-owned network Discovery Life. October 1993 saw Johnson Industries buy The Family Channel. With the buyout, the clause stipulating that the channel carry The 700 Club was retained. The network gained more visibility when, for a four-year period from 1994 to 1997, it served as the primary sponsor of Ted Musgrave's No. 16 Ford Thunderbird in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, and afterwards, until 2016, served as an associate sponsor. The Family Channel ventured further into original programming in May 1996, with the premiere of its first original made-for-TV movie, Night of the Twisters (loosely based on the Ivy Ruckman book of the same name and co-produced with corporate sister MTM Enterprises). During the mid-1990s, children's programming was slowly removed from The Family Channel's schedule, before disappearing altogether in 1997. As The Family Channel, the network attracted an older audience outside of the demographic of adults ages 18 to 49 traditionally sought by advertisers; only about one-third of homes with viewers that watched Family included children or youths. Programming Coming soon * The 700 Club * Michael Burger's Family Challenge